Attentively Attentive to all Things

You open your mail to find a letter from your health insurance company. Their correspondence always confuses you, so you set it aside and move on to another task. The letter sits there for days, unread. Then, you receive a call from your doctor's office, telling you your insurance company is requesting information from you before they will pay for your services. What?! They've not asked for information from me! And then you remember the letter you opened and set aside... In my ten plus years as a patient account representative and insurance clerk for a multi-specialty physician medical clinic, I see this scenario over and over. Today I had this very same incident happen to one of my patients. Many do not understand the confusing world of health insurance, and to some, ignorance is bliss. However, such ignorance can lead to many problems in the future at your doctor's office, where all of a sudden, a $1,000.00 bill for services is owed by YOU. Here's what can happen: You...

As I was showering this past Saturday morning, I experienced an epiphany of extraordinary, and somewhat embarrassing proportions. First, let me explain... As an English Major I have a class called Topics in English, where I choose a subject I want to research, ask one of my instructors to work with me on it, and then write a hugely huge paper, thus ending my tenure as a college student. Sounds easy, right? Really? Yeah, not so much. The possibilities with an English major are endless, so while I have over a year to begin this exhausting process, I started worrying about the second my advisor told me about this class. This is obviously not a paper I can procrastinate on and complete at the last moment. So over the past month now, two websites I frequent have been having two different arguments ongoing- one website is discussing the responsibilities of a fiction writer to his or her readers, and the other is attempting to have a intellectual discussion regarding the phenomena of the Rape...

I live in the Midwest, meaning we can go from 32 degrees and snow, to 50 degrees and rain with a drive of about 5 miles to the South. I'm used to the crazy weather here, and sometimes it's kind of nice, in a weird, Midwestern sort of way. At least we have all three seasons. However, what is not nice are the people who drive 4x4 vehicles and think they are invincible. I drive a Honda CR-V, and no, it's not 4-wheel drive. It gets around well and I feel relatively safe driving my 8 month old around in slick road conditions. This only applies, though, when others aren't around me, specifically, the aforementioned 4-wheel drive drivers. Don't get me wrong, my rant does not include all of these people, but who it does include are those who insist on driving 50mph or faster on snow packed roads, and then when you aren't going their desired speed, they ride your bumper as you drive the normal 30-40mph speed. More than once I have found myself pulling over into the snow-...

This term I am taking a children's writing class as part of my Creative Writing minor. I've never had any ambition to write a children's story, so when I learned I would have to not only write, but attempt to illustrate or at the very least write illustration notes...panic set in. Literally. I love children's books...that other people write. I'm hoping the amazing textbook for this class will give me some ideas to start with. All I came up with is fairies. That's probably been overdone...right?

So a few weeks ago, my mother asked if she could enter Caris in the Regis and Kelly Beautiful Baby Contest .  I entered this picture: because I didn't hear from her and wondered if she had changed her mind.  Then, she tells me she entered this picture: *sigh*  Both are fine, of course, but I hope entering her twice didn't cancel each other out.  Oh, and don't bother searching for her in the gallery of children's photos, because she's not there.  It does say it's random, but I was hoping, just a smidge, that she'd be there. There's another contest that I discovered in the free American Baby magazines you get in the mail.  This one lets you enter 6 pictures!  Dear God, which pictures will I enter?!  My hands rub together in eager anticipation of the thought of going through the mountains of photos on the hard drive (because I AM the paparazzi, Lady Gaga eat your heart out!) and choosing 6! It will be impossible! Am I a bad mom for entering my child in a...